Key Takeaways
- In its most recent investment round, Perplexity is looking to raise $500 million with a valuation of $8 billion.
- Jeff Bezos and Nvidia are among the major investors who have expressed interest; prior rounds increased the startup’s worth to $3 billion.
- By looking into advertising options in addition to its current subscription model, the AI business hopes to diversify its revenue sources.
Perplexity, an AI search startup, is aiming for a valuation of up to $8 billion in its fourth investment round this year.
Numerous publications, including the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, claim that the company, which is well-known for its AI-powered search engine, is looking to fund between $500 million and $1 billion, more than doubling its prior valuation.
The corporation was valued at $150 billion after OpenAI’s historic $6.6 billion fundraising round, which preceded this one. Investor interest has increased as a result of OpenAI’s success, and some now view Perplexity as a viable competitor in the cutthroat AI market.
Major investors like Jeff Bezos and AI chipmaker Nvidia have taken notice of Perplexity’s recent expansion. Other well-known industry leaders, including Yann LeCun of Meta and Andrej Karpathy of OpenAI, have already endorsed the business. Perplexity has had a remarkable year; in April of last year, it raised $250 million, increasing its valuation to $3 billion.
Founded at a time when generative AI was gaining popularity, Perplexity has grown quickly, with an estimated $50 million in sales annually. However, the business’s usage of copyrighted content has drawn legal attention. Perplexity has been accused of plagiarism by a number of media sites, including Forbes, Wired, and The New York Times.
Perplexity started a revenue-sharing program in July to allay these worries by paying content producers whose work is incorporated into its AI search engines.
The San Francisco-based business, headed by former Google intern Aravind Srinivas, intends to change Google’s search ad strategy, where advertisers bid for sponsored positions, despite the controversy surrounding its content practices.
In an effort to diversify its sources of income, Perplexity is reportedly in talks with firms to test advertising on its site. With an increase in annualized revenues from $5 million in January to $35 million in August, it currently makes money from premium subscriptions.
